Ernest Roubaix Plans a Murder

By Jason Corner

Ernest loves his family with all his heart. At a friends wedding Ernest discovers something about his son-in-law, Tom, that could harm Georgia, Ernest's beloved daughter. Ernest plots to murder Tom. But recently Ernest's memory has been getting worse. Can Ernest plan the murder? Or more importantly, will he actually do it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9780244337278

Book preview

Ernest Roubaix Plans a Murder

Inspiration

To my beautiful daughter Georgie.

Happy Christmas.

Love you millions and billions. Daddy xxx

Preface

With all my heart I hope this book does not offend anyone. I was trying to describe a person with dementia, Ernest, as a capable individual. Why couldn’t a person with dementia plan a murder? Ernest did…

Ernest Roubaix: Killer

Murder and thinking-thoughts

Ernest was sat in bed plotting a murder.

Five hours earlier he had been at the wedding reception of a family acquaintance. The wedding had been fun but terribly eventful. Something occurred which changed Ernest from a mild mannered retired accountant to an angry smouldering accountant contemplating murder, he quietly chuckled at the realisation ‘me a murderer?’.

‘Am I able?’ he mused. Mused being too exciting of a description. Ernest did not frequently muse. He preferred actions to thoughts, thinking for Ernest was always a matter-of-fact occasion, one plus one is two, bricks make houses, those sort of facts, fact-facts:

‘It’s Tuesday, what shall I have for tea?’, ‘the door is squeaking, it needs oil’, ‘we are out of eggs, I’ll pop to the shop and get eggs’. His thinking-thoughts were always factual and quite dull. Well until recently.

Very occasionally Ernest would have exciting thinking-thoughts ‘I don’t want poached eggs for breakfast, I want Croissant and jam, Strawberry jam’. Ernest’s thoughts were exact, no maybes or flourishes. Definitely not a fancy man, but he was kind and occasionally cheekily funny.

Sometimes whilst getting dressed after eating exciting Croissants and Jam Ernest’s thinking-thoughts would become creative. Not necessarily what you or I might call creative ‘I’ll wear grey trousers today…’ or ‘hmmm…maybe I should wear my slightly, ever-so slightly, greyer trousers?’ Ernest knew people thought of him as dull, which bothered him slightly, but his family were all that mattered and they loved his lovable dullness and he loved that they loved. He definitely was not murderer material, but, whilst sat upright in bed, he was considering murder very seriously.

Ernest deliberated ‘planning a murder is quite complex’. These days his more complex thinking-thoughts were refereed by his wife, Marjorie (more on Marjorie later, maybe just a few words now, no-nonsense, organised and lovely like a tall sunflower). Knowing Marjorie as he did, Ernest was pretty sure she would not approve of murder.

Recently, Marjorie had begun to referee Ernest’s thinking-thoughts more frequently. This was because Ernest found thinking-thoughts, mainly recent memories, harder and slower to recall. He had also noticed difficulty grasping and recalling people’s names, seeing their faces, recognising them but not their name. The more he concentrated, the less his brain worked. Ernest called it freezing, brain freeze, not like the brain freeze his grandson Ben reported when drinking the four flavours crushed ice drink Ernest bought him at Cinemaxorama, a slightly tired cinema outside the town centre, bordered by ‘every item is a pound (ish)’ shops. Ernest knew his grandson like the back of his own hand, but Ernest would frequently call Ben the wrong name, he developed a trick to minimise this mistake, calling his tall grandson Big Ben, after the London clock, two Bs and visualising the famous clock helped Ernest remember, ‘a memory missile, destroying poor memory, BOOOOOM’ he would repeatedly reflect. Ernest increasingly needed such strategies to help him remember things about his life which he used to recall easily. He used notepads, post it notes, messages in his pockets, even spelt out messages with his food, although this was more to make Ben laugh ‘Look Ben, B-U-M’ Ernest would say pointing to his plate.

A small black diary was his greatest thinking-thought strategy, this he always kept in his left jacket inside pocket. First thing in the morning after washing and dressing he sat by his bed and read the diary which documented the upcoming day. He liked the diary, it made him feel safe. Ernest knew the diary would always be in his pocket and when he forgot something, which happened all too often these days, he would reach for the small object in his left breast pocket. Ernest always wore a jacket, shirt and tie, even on hot summer days, he liked to be smart. From time-to-time Marjorie would tell Ernest to check his diary, or dictate a shopping list for him to write down and then buy from the corner shop. Although she had been tempted Marjorie never looked in or wrote in his diary herself, she respected the peace of mind it gave Ernest to feel able and in control of his day.

The diary didn’t work for names, he felt awful when not remembering them. He wished funny names, like Big Ben, would work as well with other people in his life, Boring Bert (his bowls partner), Nosy Nora (Marjorie’s nosy friend and neighbour) or the other mysterious no-name people in his life. Worse still was his awareness that they knew he could not remember their name. Misremembering names embarrassed him ‘Hi Ernest, it is Ian your daughter’s boss’, Ernest would think ‘I KNOW YOUR NAME! I have known you ten years, arghh…give me time for your name to come’ Ernest knew this was not entirely fair, he often could not remember, even given time. He felt foolish and avoided situations where he would meet lots of people. Ernest knew this was the wrong thing to do and he was losing practice, with memory and bowls. ‘I must phone (Boring) Bert’ Ernest thought, but he knew he wouldn’t.

In all matters Ernest, Marjorie was kind and understanding, she knew Ernest was embarrassed when forgetting recent events or names. Yet sometimes she would become frustrated and without